Saturday we have a great learning launch. Ari, Milo, and Katie did a great job of learning how to conduct a launch and recover for a high altitude balloon. We launched near LaCrosse, WA. We got on site around 10:45 a.m. and began launch activities. As this was a learning launch I set a slow pace so that the students could have a chance to absorb the volume of information being thrown at them. There was a problem with the radio system Katie was working to develop. There fore there was a delay in launch. There was a healthy wind, around 20 to 30 mph, that made determining the lift difficult. We estimated our lift at launch was 15 lbs. More that we wanted by about 7 lbs. We did use the balloon containment sheet which worked well but made lift difficult to determine. The flight followed the prediction very closely. On board we carried the PongSats from Kathryn Bonzo's 4th grade class at Moscow Charter School. There were 22 PongSats each with a small experiment designed by her 4th graders. Below you can see pictures from the post flight review we conducted with the students.

This years balloon launch was textbook perfect. The launch conditions were such that we could hold the last component in the train and simply release it upon countdown. The flight followed prediction extremely well. Landing occurred only a few miles from the predicted landing spot. The 3 primary experiment were successful as well. The first experiment was to determine if a passive directional control of the experimental module was possible. The flight video demonstrated that both the rotational speed and the angle of rotation was smaller than previous flights. This is encouraging and we have plans to add an active control for the next flight. The second experiment concerned sound at altitude and the student presented his results at the UI engineering expo. Lastly, the PongSat were a hit with the elementary students and they learned a lot about the scientific method.

This year two students have signed up for dual enrollment with Near Space Engineering. One student will be investigating if it is possible to design the experiment module in such a way as to have it weather cock with the winds. While the winds are variable there should be pockets of relative consistency which would yield a constant pointing orientation. This project is in anticipation of needing a relatively stable orientation for the solar eclipse launch. The second project is about acoustics. I'm not sure of the details as of yet. In addition we will be carrying the 4th grade pongsats again this year.

Last night while taking with my wife, Kathryn, I came upon the idea of holding a district wide 4th grade PongSat launch. A quick calculation told me that 4 balloons should handle the district. This year is the pilot program for pongsats with her 4th graders at Moscow Charter School. We should learn a lot about running the program along with developing some curriculum materials that we could then organize for the district. Should be very interesting.